Over the weekend I drew up a calendar for the Spiderwick activity books and made a plan. My goal, as stated over at the 6 Writers, 1 Story blog, is to create 6 activities a day. Huh, I seem to like the number 6. For the Nancy Drew books, my goal was 10 a day, but that proved laughable. I reached that goal once, but it was July; days are longer then, and I didn’t have any other pressing work demands. That’s not the case now.

Anywho, I set a goal of six activities a day, and right now I’m thinking that’s just about impossible. Okay, not really. But it’s by no means easy. At least, not for me. I’m searching for clever twists and ties to the movie. Real extensions of the characters and plot. That’s the part that’s hard, and that’s the part that’s fun. I like subtle clever connections.

I’m also struggling a bit with the size of the puzzles. The books are digest-sized, so there’s not a lot of room on a page, plus there will be screen captures from the movie as illustrations. Plus, designers tend to like “white space.” Not me; I say jam-pack those pages with puzzle fun!

I met my goal today–Woo-hoo!–though I’ll rework one of the puzzles to make it smaller. I didn’t meet the goal yesterday. In fact, I only got 4 activities done, and one doesn’t work! Bleh. Truth is, I won’t meet my goal of 6 most days, but I’ll always aim for it. I like lofty goals; I get a real sense of accomplishment when I meet them. Easily attainable goals are simply a To Do list. Still satisfying, but in a day-to-day ordinary way.

I’m especially pleased because I really like the activities. Every one has a nice connection to the movie. To top it all off, I stitched a bit this evening and finished another element in the Puzzle Pattern! A perfect ending to a perfectly satisfying day.